20 Years of Finland Supporting the African Capacity Building Foundation

Finland has been funding the African Capacity Building Foundation (ACBF) since 1991. The Head of the Unit for Southern Africa of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Jorma Suvanto, attended the 20th Annual Meeting of the ACBF Board of Governors last month. The meeting was held in Arusha, Tanzania between 7th and 10th of September 2011.

Tanzanian Vice President Dr. Mohamed Gharib Bilal opened the meeting. Members of the Board of Governors include countries and development banks, which support the foundation. The World Bank, which is the biggest financial supporter of the foundation, acts as the administrator of the fund.

The term of the foundation is ending this year. Finland has supported ACBF during the current term of 2007–2011 with EUR 1,8 million.

In the Arusha meeting, 35 African partner countries of the ACBF agreed to increase their financial support in the next term of 2012–2016 to USD 16 million.

Organic cashew nuts are being processed for export  in Tanzania. Photo: Outi Einola-Head Organic cashew nuts are being processed for export in Tanzania. Photo: Outi Einola-Head

“It is important to note that the African member countries’ share of the funding has been strongly increasing”, Mr Suvanto says.

The whole budget of the coming term is about USD 300 million.
Although ACBF has 12 bilateral partners from Europe, Asia and North America, only Canada, Finland and Sweden are active in funding the foundation currently. Therefore the Finnish support is still important, even if the funding is relatively low.

Finland was chosen as the second vice-chair of the ACBF in the Arusha meeting, the other vice-chair being Senegal. The Nigerian Minister of Finance, Mama Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala, was chosen as the chairwoman of the foundation.

The next Annual Meeting of the ACBF Board of Governors will be held in June 2012 in Nairobi, Kenya. 

UN